Stratego
by Nitesh
Summary: Bridge games and chess matches. It was always a game that she fell into, became a part of. And now it was the savage game of war that she would have to win. But wars aren't always what they appear to be... and to everyone, it appears differently.


Stratego

It began and ended in gardens.

Alice was getting rather tired, sitting in her aunt's garden with nothing to do while her parents ate dinner and talked politics. It really was the most dull afternoon-party she had ever been to, and that even included Mabel's eleventh birthday party. She couldn't knit with her sister (she could never get past the first row), and her grandfather had successfully bored her with his war stories. The dog terrified her, and she was lonely without Dinah. So she sat in the garden and chose to be antisocial rather than have a forced social boredom and (unintentionally) be ostracized.

She was seated beneath a tree. It was a good tree, with just the right amount of shade, but not so much that the ground beneath it was more than slightly damp. She could just see the garden out of the corner of her eye, but she was seated away from it, her back to the house. In front of her was an old wooden gate, one that appeared sturdy, but still had young grass shoots creeping out of the lower posts, as if hiding. Behind it was the dirt road that ran all the way back to Alice's house, where she so desired to be.

Though it was mid-afternoon, the temperature beneath the tree was quite comfortable, and dark (but not too dark, the way it was at night), and presently Alice found that her eyes had closed, almost on their own accord. "What does sister call an afternoon nap?" wondered Alice. "Oh yes... a _siesta."_ She found herself feeling extremely proud on having used such a fantastic word.

She had no intention of sleeping, however. She only breathed quietly and listened to the noises around her. There was the wind in the oak leaves... the barking of a dog that made Alice miss Dinah even more... the gentle hum of various insects... the chirp of stray birds.. and then, suddenly, there was the sound of a bugle right as something ran over her foot.

Alice's first impression was that a hunt was occurring, and she sprang up immediately to avoid being trampled by any horses that would canter by. She squinted at the ground, expecting to see some small rabbit or fox scampering away. However, she was met with a surprising dimness. The sun was much lower in the sky than it had been previously, which seemed rather remarkable, as Alice had only shut her eyes for a few minutes. Stranger yet, there didn't seem to be any horses that were coming. Even stranger was that the old wooden gate had appeared to have transformed into a castle wall.

"Dear me," thought Alice to herself. "I must have imagined something run over my foot. I wonder what this castle is doing here?"

For it _was_ a castle wall, and Alice had the suspicion that it most certainly could not have been built while she was resting her eyes. It looked in the same shabby sort of state that the gate had been in, and Alice suddenly believed that this _was_ the gate, somehow transformed. It couldn't have been anything else.

"How odd," said Alice aloud, and this was an adequate response to such an event.

She stepped a few paces toward the castle wall, where she could just see the outline of a door, before craning her head to look behind her at the garden. Yes, the garden was still there, and it appeared the same as it had been before she had sat beneath the tree. The house was there, too. Yet both of them seemed kind of blurry, somehow, and far away, as though it would take a long time for her to reach them if she started walking to get there. Alice bit her lip, uncertain.

At that very moment, however, the sound of a trumpet being blown again sounded over the castle wall, and Alice looked back over to the wall. If she listened more carefully, she could even make out voices, though she was too far away to understand what they were saying.

"I guess that settles that," she announced to no one in particular. "If I didn't imagine the bugle, then that castle must be real."

So she started across the grass toward the sound of the voices and the bugle. The castle wall towered above her higher and higher until she got a crick in her neck just looking for the top. The door remained a normal size, much to her relief. She had had plenty of adventures that had involved shirking and enlarging doors, and she had had quite enough of them to last her for a good long time.

Though mossy and heavy, the door yielded when she pressed her shoulder against it, and then she found herself frozen in the doorway due to sheer surprise.

In retrospect, she supposed it was rather ridiculous to think that the road would still be there, that the voices that she heard only belonged to a couple of travelers. Instead what she found was an army, without the slightest trace of a road beneath their feet. The grass continued on.

People were seated about in great groups, all in armor, and all looking grim. There were small fires that groups huddled around, looking tense and uncomfortable. Surprisingly, not many were actually wounded, and there were no bodies strewn about. They were all dressed in various shades of blue, and though there was not another color soldier to be seen in the lot, Alice was certain that there had to be another army somewhere that they were fighting. It seemed impossible that they could all sit here and not have anyone to fight. Tents were sporadically placed in various areas, most of them lopsided and all looking as if they had been pitched in a hurry. It wasn't particularly noisy, as the men tended to mutter rather than shout, but upon seeing Alice enter, the nearest group of a few soldiers sprang to their feet.

"She's a Spy!"

"Capture her!"

"Kill her!"

"Sorry?" said Alice, not quite having shaken off the last of her sleep. "I'm a what?"

"That's ridiculous," said another man sternly to the others, ignoring her question. The others shrunk away from him. "How would a Spy get past that wall?"

"Well," said Alice, "I _did_ get past the wall." It couldn't have been a very good defense if anyone could just walk right in, and Alice thought the soldier would have been grateful to hear it. On the contrary, he scowled at Alice, though she felt somehow that his anger was not directed at her.

"Spy," he growled blackly, as though the word was a curse. After a second, Alice realized that he wasn't talking about her. "Damn traitor. I'll kill him myself, leaving the door open like that." He ran an agitated hand over his mustache, which seemed to soothe him slightly. "Villain," he swore quietly to himself.

"Could you please tell me what's going on?" asked Alice meekly. "I didn't realize my aunt had a war going on next to her back garden."

For a moment, the man (Alice guessed a Colonel in rank, judging by the plumage on his helmet) appeared bewildered. Then a grim expression crossed his features. "We're at war," he told Alice.

"At war over what?" the girl asked immediately.

The man looked perplexed again, though that too was quickly changed. "I don't remember," he said stoutly. "If you really want to know, I expect you can ask the Marshall."

"Isn't it rather silly, to be fighting with whole armies without even knowing what you're fighting about?" Alice asked.

"No," the Colonel said certainly. "We've been fighting the Red Army for a good long time, I expect a lot of us have forgotten. We've been here a long time. See, this isn't so much of a camp as it is a secure place where our army can rest. The Red forces haven't broken through our defenses yet to look for the flag."

"The flag?"

"Yes, the flag," said the Colonel impatiently. "When one side captures the other's flag, the war is over. Our flag is over there," he said, gesturing away to the right. Alice stood on tiptoe, but even then she couldn't see over the mass of blue to the flag. "It's well hidden, and safe." The Colonel's eyes gleamed. "If the Red Army ever got this far back in the ranks, then... BOOM!" Alice jumped, and the Colonel grinned. "The bombs will blow them sky-high."

"That's a silly way to end a war," said Alice, thinking of her grandfather's war stories. "Capturing a flag."

"I suppose it would be better if we just fought to the death, then," the Colonel said scathingly. "Kill and kill until one side is left. That's a _stupid_ way to end a war."

This made sense to her. "Sorry." The apology was genuine. "I didn't think of it that way." Inspiration struck her suddenly. "Could I help? Maybe I could get the flag."

"You could try," the Colonel muttered doubtfully, chewing on his lip. "I don't know if it would help, but then again, you are very small. You might be able to slip past the Reds, if you're lucky." He still looked concerned. "Are you sure you want to help?"

Alice saw the miserable hope in his eyes and nodded. The man broke into a smile. He got down on his knees, and for a moment Alice thought that he was going to pray. But he only took her arm and pointed out perpendicular to the wall. "Go to the Scouts on the front lines, then pass them on. If you head straight, you'll get to the back of the Red Army camp. We figure the west section doesn't have the Flag, so head east if you're able. Do you understand?"

Alice nodded again. "I won't even have to change my dress," she thought. "I fit right in with the Blue Army."

"Good," he said softly. "What's your name?"

Alice told him, and he stood.

"I must go now," he said regretfully, looking away from him towards the right, as if some unseen presence beckoned him there. "Good luck." And he clanked soberly away.

Alice was alone again now, with nobody with her. The group of soldiers who had been so intent on calling her a Spy were all now ignoring her, warded away by their senior officer's stern reprimand. So, she was left mostly to her own devices as she wandered through the Blue Army camp.

As she wandered toward the front of the camp, she recognized the men in the back rank's grimness for what it was—tension and worry. "It must be difficult for them to just be waiting while everyone else is fighting," thought Alice. "Especially if they have to wait for the Red Army to come and attack them first." And this appeared to be true, for even as she walked a hundred yards away from the castle wall, morale seemed to boost significantly. Several men sang songs around fires that were built haphazardly without a pit or a stone barrier around. Alice also noticed that the variations in uniform were growing. Presently she paused and stood on tiptoe again, but she still couldn't see any flashes of Red amongst the Blue.

She dropped back onto the flats of her feet and then saw a man who was sitting a way apart from the others. He was sitting in a wooden chair at an extremely old desk that looked as if it had been taken out of her grandfather's study. He looked very different from the other army men, both in physical appearance and in uniform. Instead of wearing on of the blue uniforms, he wore a black coat and pants. He almost looked out of place on the battlefield, sitting and looking utterly absorbed with whatever he was doing, which seemed to be making tiny notes on the margins of several papers. A black hat sat crookedly on his head, concealing one eye. The one she could see was sharp and gray, and he looked as if he hadn't shaved in days, though there was no tiredness there, only cunning. His mouth was a thin line that curled maliciously as Alice approached the desk, and after a moment, he looked up.

"You're in my light," he announced. Alice, who was expecting his voice to have a tone of British education, was surprised to hear a drawl. She instantly apologized.

"Don't be sorry, just move," he growled. When she stepped to the side, the maps (for that's what the pages were) cleared, but he still stared up at Alice. When Alice continued to stare back, he rolled the eye that Alice could see and leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. "Can I help you with something?"

His voice was so heavily laden with sarcasm she almost considered walking away right then. Instead (perhaps due to the fact that this was the only person who had looked at her since she had talked with the Colonel), she said, "I'm going to go and capture the Red flag."

"Are you really now." The way he said it didn't make it seem as if it was a question. "What are you, some kind of new Scout? Not that it'll help much, as the veterans seem to be getting picked off like nobody's business." He glanced down at his maps again. "Such a shame," he said, not sounding as though it was much of a shame at all.

"Shouldn't you be a little more sympathetic?" asked Alice.

The man looked up again. His eyes were narrowed, but when he spoke, it was still in the same tone. "Bygones, kid. People die in war. As for the Scouts, well… I suppose that's their lot in life." Without waiting for an answer, he looked down again, circled a place on the map, and scribbled something next to it.

Not certain what to say to that, she shuffled her step. "My name's Alice. I'm not a Scout, just a girl."

"Not even a Scout." His mouth twisted even thinner. "Now, that's just sad." He paused, then smiled and extended a hand. "Spy."

Alice stared at it for a moment, then curtsied. "Pleased to meet you," she said, though she wasn't at all sure if that was true yet. "Do you have a first name? Or a last, really… it's kind of silly to call someone by their title." Belatedly she wondered if this was the Spy that the colonel had mentioned. He certainly had the negative charisma.

"Is it really." Again, not a question. "Well, you'll have to make do. Everyone else does." He scribbled something in the margin of the map, pursed his lips, and rolled it up.

"What are your doing?" asked Alice, hesitantly curious.

The man looked up at her again, almost seeming exasperated. Then he shook his head, humoring her. "I'm pinpointing the location that the Red Marshall is," he said. "I need to attack him before anyone attacks me. If I pull a gun on anyone over there, I'm dead. But, the Marshall seems to like me, so I should just have to walk up to him, shoot him, and leave if I get my work done right first."

"Sounds dangerous," said Alice, thinking of how she had to trek all the way through the Red Camp.

"It's the most dangerous job there is," the Spy mumbled, shuffling papers together. "Don't know why I do it sometimes. Ridiculous." He tucked the maps away into his long coat and stood, shoving his chair backwards without bothering to put it back.

"Do they know you're a Spy?" asked Alice as the Spy strode purposefully away. She jogged after him. "The Red Army?" It would be much easier sneaking into the Red Camp if she had someone with her who was supposed to be working for them.

He looked faintly uninterested that she had followed. "Yes, they do. They'd kill me in a second. Only one who won't is the Marshall, as he remains in a steady faith that I have seen the light in the purpose of his war. Old fool." There was a pistol in one hand that Alice hadn't noticed before.

She squinted sideways at him. "Don't you like him? He must like _you_ a lot, to ignore everyone else who tells him you're bad."

"_Like_ him?" A genuine surprise flashed across his face. "Who said I don't? He's one of the best men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."

"Then why do you want to kill him?"

The Spy stared at her, frowning. His pace didn't slow. "Because if I didn't, someone else would." Then the surprise stole away and his face was set in the same grimness she had seen earlier. "People die in war."

"But he's your friend—"

"It doesn't make a difference."

Alice was silent.

"Why are you following me?" he asked of her, instead. "I'm sure you can find better company than an old traitor such as myself."

"No one else will even look at me," she admitted.

He seemed to accept this answer, and grinned savagely. "Peas in a pod," he remarked flippantly, as if commenting on the weather.

This wasn't entirely correct, because though people were still keeping well away from the odd couple, many did not mask the hatred or mere open dislike on their faces when they stared at the Spy, who was strolling at Alice's side and humming absently.

Surprisingly, walking with the Spy made Alice's journey go much more quickly, and it wasn't long before they were able to make it to the Frontlines. Here the evidence of battle was obvious—there were large gaps where people should have been where there was only blood now, and people were standing at attention towards their foe. Alice could see the Red Army now, though she noticed it was extremely difficult to distinguish rank. Unnervingly, there were no bodies strewn about, just the obvious amount of blood.

Alice was also surprised to see that the battle went particularly slowly. Instead of full-out charges, men approached each other one-on-one. She bit her lip as a man vanished after being impaled on the end of a Red sword with a blood-curling shriek, and she noticed that the Spy had paused in his step as well.

"Hello," said a quiet voice in her ear. "You doing alright?"

A young man stood next to her that she hadn't noticed before. She was tall and thin, with a lofty hat that marked him as a Scout. He did not wear armor, and only carried a pike as a weapon, but his brown eyes were serene and calm.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you," said Alice.

Her tone was apparently not convincing enough, because he smiled encouragingly and leaned down near her. "I realize it does look frightening," he whispered, "But don't be afraid."

She stared up into the Scout's friendly face. "You don't look afraid at all," she said. He _should_ be scared. If what the Spy had said was right about the Scouts, he could die at any time.

"Little girl—"

"Alice," Alice corrected. Though everyone else had titles, she did not want one.

"Alice," he said firmly. "Do you want to know a secret?"

Alice brightened considerably. She loved secrets, but she wasn't usually told them very often, unless one counted Mabel's secrets, which were usually ridiculously dull.

He leaned forward. "I'm in love," he whispered to her conspiratorially. Then he leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and smiled contently across the field at the massive Red Army.

Alice felt slightly put out. It had been a rather anticlimactic secret, and a snort on her other side solidified the feeling. "That's not much of a secret," she told the Scout. "Lots of people are in love." She paused, then plowed on. "I'd think that would make you more frightened than having no one to love at all in a war."

He shook his head. "It's not a woman I love. That's the secret." Alice opened her mouth to ask what on earth he was talking about, but he continued, his voice growing stronger with every word, trembling with passion. "I'm in love with an idea, Alice. A concept that I am fighting for. A way of life that I'll die for, to give others the chance to have it. I will be the martyr of a beautiful cause, Alice, and that is why I am not afraid. I have nothing to fear."

"Suicidal rubbish," came the Spy's voice from Alice's other side.

"Who are you to talk about suicidal?" returned the Scout, just as amiably, though not smiling. "Who is suicidal if not you, Spy?"

"I notice," said the Spy tightly, "That I am the only one willing to take the necessary risks."

"You were the first one to volunteer for your job. Either you love the idea, too, or you want to die. Maybe both. But doubtful in neither."

The Spy said nothing in return, but turned away from the Scout, growling something under his breath that made it sound as though he didn't agree.

"What is the Blue Army fighting for?" asked Alice, thinking of the Colonel and how he couldn't recall what it was.

"I know what _I'm_ fighting for, Alice. And I also know what the Red Army is fighting _against_. But in the end, everyone is fighting for different things. For some it's love and justice, for others it's revenge. For some it's about a better way of life, for others it's only political gain. War is complex, Alice. It's different the way we all look at it." He leaned against the pike. "You've heard my secret, child," he said. "Now, what's yours? Where are you going?"

"I'm trying to get to the flag," said Alice. "I'm not fighting for anything, I guess. I don't want to fight. I just want the flag."

"Why do you want the flag?" pressed the Scout. "Why bother?"

She wasn't certain as to what to say, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "There was a Colonel in the back of the ranks," she said. "He didn't know what he was fighting for."

"He couldn't remember what _someone else_ was fighting for," corrected the Scout. "He knows." He adjusted his hat, and his brown eyes smiling down at her were a surprising reassurance. "You don't have to tell me why," he whispered to her. "It's your secret." He winked and jostled her shoulder. "If you head in that direction," he said in a louder voice, pointing, "the Red Army has almost completely forsaken the area. Very weak. Superior officers are planning a charge, I've heard. East flank. You might be able to slip in that way undetected." He held out his hand, and this time Alice took it to shake before her curtsey. "It was nice meeting you at this time, Alice." He nodded at the Spy, who to Alice's surprise managed a surprisingly civil nod in return. Then he started across the battlefield, and shortly vanished out of sight.

The Spy muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like 'screwy.' "So you'll shake his hand, but you won't shake mine?" He smiled ruefully, but Alice noticed that his eyes darted from side to side, and he looked considerably less confident now that the Red Army was close.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" asked Alice anxiously.

The Spy removed his hat, revealing black, short hair. He ran a hand through it absently before replacing it. "Scouts run up to forward officers and shout out their rank before they are slaughtered," said the Spy. "They do this in hopes a higher ranking will hear and be able to slay them."

"Then there's no hope he'll live."

There was no sarcasm in his voice now. "I'm afraid not, kid."

There was another silence between them as Alice considered what he had just said, and the Spy brushed his hand over his jaw.

"Now why are _you_ following _me_?" asked Alice of the Spy. "Isn't the Marshall somewhere out there?"

"My plans were close enough that I could make a detour through a desolate area," he said confidently. "Makes my job easier. Despite what _he_ said, I would rather _not_ die."

They walked together for what seemed like a long time, neither saying much to each other. It was getting dark now, and fog was creeping over the ground and was making it difficult to see far distances. But signs of the Red Army's abandoned encampment still became evident as they walked—here would be the remnants of an old fire pit, there would be a singed tarp that once belonged to a tent. Every once in a while they would see the scuffle of movement, but it was artfully dodged and any encounter with the enemy was evaded. Everything seemed to be going easily.

A short swear alerted Alice of her companion for the first time in a long silence. She looked at him to see him staring over his shoulder to the side. Though Alice saw nothing through the dark fog, he immediately raced off towards whatever he had seen, leaving her alone. She heard his footsteps fall away and finally die.

She started after him before stopping. "Wait!" she called uselessly. She knew that he would have eventually had to leave her, she just had wished she had had a chance to wish him luck.

"Miss?"

Alice shrieked and jumped away, clawing at the voice that had appeared directly next to her. A short man with a smudged face and tattered iron helmet jerked backwards as well. When she had recognized him as a Blue soldier, and had stopped attacking, he peered at her. "Are you Blue?" he asked, sounding hopeless.

"Yes."

The relief on his face was clear, even in the darkness. "Good. I need you to come with me."

Alice, ever difficult, challenged this. "Why?"

"Because," he said softly. "I've disarmed the bombs."

Alice's heart leapt into her throat, remembering the Colonel's words. "You have? Is the flag close?"

"Yes, but there's a Sergeant that's with it." He offered Alice a shaky smile. "Not much, but someone that can kill a Miner. You're pretty small, though… you could get past him. If you allow me to lead you, I can help you pass him."

Alice nodded and found herself following him. Then, she saw it— a beautiful Red flag, on a dark pole. It waved unhappily in the dark, and she saw, when she squinted, a figure patrolling around the flag—luckily, far away enough from it that she would be able to slip by. She started forward.

"Wait."

She stopped as if the Miner had grabbed her arm with the quiet word. He pointed at the ground. There she could see that there were holes in the ground, spaced evenly away from each other.

"That's where I was able to disarm those bombs," he whispered. "If you see a hole, I've taken up the bomb. Stay to the path its made and you should be fine." He smiled at her, a smile that wasn't happy but strained and tired.

She thanked him quietly and crept forward. She stepped gingerly, despite the assurance that the Miner had given her. She kept an eye on the Sergeant, and she soon she was at the flag, which towered above her. Reaching out, she grasped it with both hands.

An angry yell sounded behind her but it didn't matter, it didn't matter because she had the flag and the war was won. She imagined for a moment, or maybe she even saw, the Spy creeping up on the Marshall, the Scout as she last saw him, shaking her hand, the Colonel suddenly looking to the east with a smile, the Miner just behind her breaking into a smile that wasn't quite nervous. The flag vanished in her hands, and so did the Sergeant standing away from her. Unbalanced, she fell forward to hit the ground—

—And landed face-forward on the ground beneath the tree of her aunt's garden.

"What on earth—" she began indignantly, pushing herself up on her hands. The dog, Sally, woofed from her spot near Alice, licking her ear helpfully. Alice shrieked and batted the dog, who slunk unhappily away. It was evening, and the afternoon-party was over. She could hear her mother calling her name from the doorway, and she got hastily to her feet.

The castle wall was once again a gate, same as it had been before. Alice gave it one last look before running through the garden and away.


End file.
